Charlie Miller likes to think he’s reducing urban ugliness by caring for trees, which he fervently believes improve the quality of life. “Trees are really irreplaceable in our lifetimes,” he says, pointing to a huge honey locust at the corner of Clark and Schiller. If it were taken out–for which the company he works for, the Care of Trees, would charge $3,000–a six-to-eight-foot tree replacement might take 40 years to grow to the same size. That would make Miller 71 years old.
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Chicago isn’t kind to trees. Street salt encrusts their trunks in the winter, and extreme heat and periods of drought assault them in the summer. Our soil is lousy–sandy a few inches down, rocky debris a foot down, bedrock ten feet down. And while the city’s official motto is “Urbs in Horto” (city in a garden), it’s trumped by its moniker whenever the wind uproots trees–including hundreds in the past few weeks.
The effects of this year’s tough winter and cool, wet spring won’t be apparent for months. Rust fungus will show up on many hawthorns and apple scab on crab apples. Fire blight will also hit hawthorns and apples. Left untreated, these diseases will eventually kill the trees. Plenty of sycamores have already dropped their leaves twice this year, victims of a widespread fungus known as anthracnose, which attacks stressed trees.
A couple on the Inner Drive want Miller to shear off the top 15 feet of a honey locust in front of their condo because it blocks their view of the lake. He explains that “topping” a tree causes it to send up small, weak suckers that are prone to breaking. Finally he persuades them to let him just trim the lateral branches, opening up the tree and giving them more of a view.
“Well,” Miller says slowly, “these are structural roots, and American elms are delicate trees. Stress it and you’re inviting Dutch elm disease.” He explains that wrapping the exposed roots under the proposed footing and sidewalk or bending them back toward the tree could lead to girdling, which could also kill the tree.
